Mothering Forum - Breastfeeding, anti-vaxx, and co-sleeping, oh my!

[Trilby]

Another bad parenting thing. This is pretty depressing.

The fact that it looks official and is apparently a recommended resource for parents is very troubling. It seems like it would be in bad taste to make a joke about these people, because you'd be essentially making fun of a child's formative years being sabotaged, and the child probably being a little messed up for the rest of their life and requiring psychiatric help to fix the damage done.

Oh my god, I now feel guilty for chuckling at Honey Boo Boo and those Toddlers And Tiaras videos.

It is a sick, sad world we live in.

 

[melty]

but we are careful NOT to have them see us DTD

I'm pretty sure I know what she's getting at but what the fuck is this acronym... these people have the most annoying language. how hard is it to just type "husband" or "daughter"?

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

Usually they just openly fuck in front of their kids, they figure the kids are too young to understand what Mom and Dad are up to and sometimes the parents try to excuse it by saying it's their way of educating their kids about sex and reproduction.

I feel like every time that happens to a child, they're like "screw this, when I grow up, I'm not gonna' have children!" and have decades of repressed memories from the sex he/she has seen.

 

[Owen Grady]

I'm pretty sure I know what she's getting at but what the fuck is this acronym... these people have the most annoying language. how hard is it to just type "husband" or "daughter"?

If I had to guess?

"Doing The Dirty".

I wanted to make a joke questioning why anybody on the Farms would have anything negative to say about insane parents, since these stupid mothers are clearly producing more lolcows in training than ever before. Now I'm starting to think that might be in bad taste. It seems like too many of the people on these mothering forums are dangerously dumb. How is it that these sorts of ideas were able to become prevalent on a forum for mothers? Are there or were there ever any good parents who posted around there? Did it have some sort of Tumblr effect occur at some point, where anybody with rational opinions just started getting shouted down and shamed for being "insensitive" before getting chased off?

 

[An Ounce of Vagina]

It seems like too many of the people on these mothering forums are dangerously dumb. How is it that these sorts of ideas were able to become prevalent on a forum for mothers? Are there or were there ever any good parents who posted around there? Did it have some sort of Tumblr effect occur at some point, where anybody with rational opinions just started getting shouted down and shamed for being "insensitive" before getting chased off?

Unfortunately that's probably exactly what happened. That and reflexive "If modern medicine/psychology says is good it must be harmful, and if they say it's harmful it must be good." that has consumed so much of the left.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

If I had to guess?

"Doing The Dirty".

I wanted to make a joke questioning why anybody on the Farms would have anything negative to say about insane parents, since these stupid mothers are clearly producing more lolcows in training than ever before. Now I'm starting to think that might be in bad taste. It seems like too many of the people on these mothering forums are dangerously dumb. How is it that these sorts of ideas were able to become prevalent on a forum for mothers? Are there or were there ever any good parents who posted around there? Did it have some sort of Tumblr effect occur at some point, where anybody with rational opinions just started getting shouted down and shamed for being "insensitive" before getting chased off?

Tumblr's been known to have that effect on sane people. It's to the point where the insane people seem to outnumber those who are actually mentally sound (or at least, not as crazy).

Most of us are negative towards the mother and/or father (though usually the former for obvious reasons) because the child usually has no say in the matter and the parent is to blame for their future status of being a lolcow. More so in cases like this, where they purposely are trying to scar their children for life.

 

[Owen Grady]

Unfortunately that's probably exactly what happened. That and reflexive "If modern medicine/psychology says is good it must be harmful, and if they say it's harmful it must be good." that has consumed so much of the left.

If that's true, it's a crazy revelation. Especially considering that the stereotype for most anti-medical opinions and fringe parenting ideas, particularly in regards to ant-vaxxing, supposedly resided almost exclusively on the right. It's telling. I suppose it's true what people are saying about how both sides of crazies are becoming so far gone that the spectrum is now beginning to curve in on itself.

Tumblr's been known to have that effect on sane people. It's to the point where the insane people seem to outnumber those who are actually mentally sound (or at least, not as crazy).

Most of us are negative towards the mother and/or father (though usually the former for obvious reasons) because the child usually has no say in the matter and the parent is to blame for their future status of being a lolcow. More so in cases like this, where they purposely are trying to scar their children for life.

I agree. I think this may bother me a bit more than Tumblr. At least with Tumblr you can rest easier under the reasonable assumption that most of its userbase are dumb, lazy millennials with no jobs who will never reproduce and probably aren't active enough to make any sort of real change in the world. Also, some of them still have a small window of time to get their shit together and hopefully realize how stupid and entitled they've been.

But this though, it's a bit scarier. The users on these mothering forums are (physically) actual adults who are set in their ways, with jobs or at least partners who have jobs to maintain their lifestyles. They are clearly not qualified to be doing what they are doing and yet, they are entrusted with raising these children while holding onto insane opinions and methods that are, frankly, dangerous to their children's futures, and perhaps by extension their children's generation as well.

It's disconcerting.

 

[ICametoLurk]

"Doctor took advantage of me while I was giving birth"
http://www.mothering.com/forum/502-...-did-you-experience-abuse-hospital-birth.html

I was harassed, belittled and stabbed in the flank by the guy giving me an epidural, because I was terrified and crying, he stabbed me in the side with the needle and then said, SEE, that doesn't hurt...strapped to the bed by monitors, not allowed to walk or eat or do anything but lay under awful bright lights until they told me to PUSH, on my back while my ex and a nurse held my legs up. I was given staydol initially then the epi after that and it wasn't a strong enough dose. I told the nurses constantly and begged for more pain relief which I needed desperately due to the pitocin. Finally after hours and hours they gave me TOO STRONG of a dose and I couldn't feel ANYTHING from my chest down for HOURS after the birth. I remember trying to get up to pee and falling. It was a dehumanizing experience. I was given w/o consent or warning an episiotomy,

episiotomy is a cut that is done to the Vagina to let the baby come out so that the baby can come out if the vagina is too small.

SHAME ON THE DOCTORS CARING ABOUT THE THE BABY'S LIFE.

http://www.mothering.com/forum/297-television/851582-view-how-old-too-old-naked-front-kids.html

I'm gonna' be 30 and my mom is 55. We still will get naked in front of each other. I saw my dad naked till I was, at least, 11.

http://www.mothering.com/forum/37-co-sleeping-family-bed/76909-do-you-sleep-nude-your-kids.html

YES,am a 27 yr old single mom co-sleep with several boys from 5 to 12

This woman sleeps nude with her seven kids in one giant bed.

9 year-old now covers his eyes when he sees me in less than my undies. I don't make a big deal about it- but I respect his preference to not look.

http://www.mothering.com/forum/39-preteens-teens/1460962-15-year-old-daughter-want-nude-home.html

First she has two younger brothers. 8 and 12.

This summer past, the first day we opened the pool, she came down stairs, and strolled through the house naked. She would even come inside for lunch naked

http://www.mothering.com/forum/35-parenting/1317326-what-age-should-dd-no-longer-see-dh-naked.html

When my now 12 yo told me that he didn't like me walking around naked when he was 8 yo, we talked about it and I told him that I felt like I should be able to be naked in my own house and so should he, but if he was uncomfortable with nudity, then *he* should cover up, not try to control what I do with my body. He agreed that that sounded reasonable and I bought him a bathrobe and from then on, he always had on clothes or his bathrobe when he was in the house.

 

[Gym Leader Elesa]

Aside from that, there's Co-Sleeping, which is when you stick your infant in bed with you. I'm sure absolutely nothing horrible could ever come from rolling over in your sleep when there is a newborn baby next to you.

Also, double post, but co sleeping is unbelievably dangerous. Please never ever do it.

Spoiler: powerlevel

A girl I went to high school with decided to try co sleeping with her youngest child because so many people preached to her about how wonderful it was. During the night she rolled over and accidentally crushed the baby to death. Many of the same women who had pushed for her to co sleep then began to shame her for doing it.

This really intrigues me. Where I come from, people often sleep with their newborns for a few weeks, usually while they're recovering from childbirth (which is a little bit extra dangerous in that region, my mother for instance suffering spinal injuries.) I stayed with my mother in bed for the first two weeks (not that I remember it!) Is it really that harmful? I guess what everyone is saying makes sense. I just never heard of it hurting anybody. No one ever mentioned it, and it was an almost universal practice. I am talking thousands upon thousands of people here.

Obviously, it was very weird once the infant was considered old enough to sleep in a crib (usually after about two weeks).

 

[Sharonthecat]

Usually they just openly fuck in front of their kids, they figure the kids are too young to understand what Mom and Dad are up to and sometimes the parents try to excuse it by saying it's their way of educating their kids about sex and reproduction.

Two things.
1- At what point does that become a creepy-ass fetish, and
2- NOPE NOPE NOPE FOREVER

 

[Petronella]

This really intrigues me. Where I come from, people often sleep with their newborns for a few weeks, usually while they're recovering from childbirth (which is a little bit extra dangerous in that region, my mother for instance suffering spinal injuries.) I stayed with my mother in bed for the first two weeks (not that I remember it!) Is it really that harmful? I guess what everyone is saying makes sense. I just never heard of it hurting anybody. No one ever mentioned it, and it was an almost universal practice. I am talking thousands upon thousands of people here.

Obviously, it was very weird once the infant was considered old enough to sleep in a crib (usually after about two weeks).

Interesting! I've heard of people here doing it very early on if they breastfeed because it's easier to just roll over and feed the kid instead of having to go over and get him out of the crib, other than that I'm not sure how common it is here. I think that if it's done when the baby is very young it's not as problematic because they'll usually stay put, a lot of the problems I've seen come up when people try co sleeping with babies who are older than that as the kids tend to flail around more and can accidentally shift position in the bed.

 

[Piga Dgrifm]

This entire subforum is amazing, much of it boils down to reeing over the doctor deciding it would be a good idea to not let the mother or baby die for no reason: http://www.mothering.com/forum/502-healing-birth-trauma/

http://www.mothering.com/forum/502-healing-birth-trauma/1514689-they-killing-us-literally.html

apparently in the 1800s obstetrics was so dangerous that women would literally chose giving birth in a street unassisted than go to be tortured/killed at the hands of doctors. Are we going back to that?

Huh. It's almost like medical science has.... I don't know... advanced or something since the 1800s!

 

[Cosmos]

Also, double post, but co sleeping is unbelievably dangerous. Please never ever do it.

Spoiler: powerlevel

A girl I went to high school with decided to try co sleeping with her youngest child because so many people preached to her about how wonderful it was. During the night she rolled over and accidentally crushed the baby to death. Many of the same women who had pushed for her to co sleep then began to shame her for doing it.

Letting a baby sleep on something soft and squishy (eg. A bed) can be very dangerous if they're to roll over and they'll end up suffocating in the bed because they don't have the strength to roll back over by themselves. I'm sure there are a few other reasons I don't know (other than you crushing the baby under your fat ass) but there is a reason cribs and beds for toddlers have hard mattresses and not soft ones

Gosh, it's almost like cribs were specifically designed and created to protect babies or something.

Also, as much as I hate the idea of government intervention in personal lives, I feel like vaccinations should be mandatory. No infant or child should have to die of/be crippled by a disease that has effectively been wiped out in the developed world.

 

[Scrappy]

This really intrigues me. Where I come from, people often sleep with their newborns for a few weeks, usually while they're recovering from childbirth (which is a little bit extra dangerous in that region, my mother for instance suffering spinal injuries.) I stayed with my mother in bed for the first two weeks (not that I remember it!) Is it really that harmful? I guess what everyone is saying makes sense. I just never heard of it hurting anybody. No one ever mentioned it, and it was an almost universal practice. I am talking thousands upon thousands of people here.

Obviously, it was very weird once the infant was considered old enough to sleep in a crib (usually after about two weeks).

In my family it's tradition to keep the baby in a bassinet directly next to the bed until it outgrows the bassinet (2-3 months), so I understand the concept of keeping baby close, especially while healing. A newborn baby actually in the bed probably wouldn't be a huge issue as long as precautions are taken. If it's tradition where you live, then they probably know how to do it in a way that minimizes any risks.
The problem is that a lot of mothers do the co-sleeping thing without knowing how. You can't just lay a baby in an adult bed (particularly a baby that can roll over, but any baby, really) without making some changes to how the bed is set up. You also can't trust that the "mother instinct" will stop you from rolling over onto the baby, or accidentally pulling the blankets over its face.
I feel like the strong advocates with co-sleeping are always like: "it'll be fine, lol! You have a super secret special bond that will keep anything bad from happening! I promise, for realsies!"
Instead of: "here's what might go wrong. If you're still willing to take the risk, here are some ways to at least minimize it."

It has the potential to be an extremely dangerous thing, and I hate that some people act like it's nothing.

 

[MysticMisty]

Others participate in Elimination Communication, which involves never putting a diaper on your infant, under some insane delusion that you can tell when they need to go by hand-movements or facial-expressions and stick them onto a potty in time.

I'd like to see them fight with their extreme opposites, the parents that let otherwise normal kids shit in diapers indefinitely "until they say they're ready to be potty trained."

One thing seems to be clear from all of this: good parents don't use the internet EVER.

 

[Piga Dgrifm]

I'd like to see them fight with their extreme opposites, the parents that let otherwise normal kids shit in diapers indefinitely "until they say they're ready to be potty trained."

One thing seems to be clear from all of this: good parents don't use the internet EVER.

I thought you were shitting (heh) me, and yet...
http://www.janetlansbury.com/2014/0...-need-toilet-training-and-what-to-do-instead/

 

[MysticMisty]

I thought you were shitting (heh) me, and yet...
http://www.janetlansbury.com/2014/0...-need-toilet-training-and-what-to-do-instead/

I found out years ago from my mom, who had a younger co-worker whose kid hadn't even begun potty training at four. I don't know if they were potty trained before kindergarten or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if one or two kids starting school still in diapers is "normal" now.

 

[Trilby]

I found out years ago from my mom, who had a younger co-worker whose kid hadn't even begun potty training at four. I don't know if they were potty trained before kindergarten or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if one or two kids starting school still in diapers is "normal" now.

god.

 

[Bugaboo]

From what I've heard in Canada they won't let kids into kindergarten without potty training because it's not the teacher's job to change their diapers.

 

[Trilby]

From what I've heard in Canada they won't let kids into kindergarten without potty training because it's not the teacher's job to change their diapers.

Good, I can't help but pity those teachers that are stuck with that mess down here.